Die Around Me
by Counter Spark
Summary: When death is certain, sometimes the most you can ask for is to die with the people you love. Even when it makes no sense that you love them. *Especially* when it makes no sense. DHr. Post-HBP, non-canon. War.


**Title: **Die Around Me

**Author: **Counter Spark

**Summary: **When death is certain, sometimes the most you can ask for is to die with the people you love. Even when it makes no sense that you love them. _Especially_ when it makes no sense. DHr. Post-HBP, non-canon. War.

**Disclaimer: **I haven't written on for a long while, but do we still have to do this obvious disclaimers? If so, guess what? Not JK Rowling! Crazy, I know!

**A/N: **Gonna keep it brief here-I hope you like my new fic! R&R!

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**1**

They found Narcissa Malfoy's body by a storm-drain in Spinner's End. It hadn't been there for very long. The body would've still been warm if it wasn't for the rain, which was falling down that night in freezing sheets. Her pale skin was translucent by then, the spidery, blue network of her veins completely visible from head to toe. Oh, that's worth mentioning too. She was naked.

Her white-blonde hair stuck to her like seaweed on a drowned-person, her lips just as blue as the veins that Hermoine saw when she raised her wand and managed to say _'lumos'_ past her chattering teeth.

No wound, no bruises. It was the Killing Curse that had done her in.

"_Merlin_," Harry said, pulling the hood of his cloak over his head. Like this, Hermoine could only see the glow of her wand-light reflected in his glasses. Everything else there was darkness.

"This wasn't one of us, was it?" Ron had turned his back to the body, thinking it indecent to look at her this way. He'd never been a fan of the Malfoys, from their pigheaded father to their snot-nosed only son, but the woman didn't deserve to die this way. Few people did. Ron had it on good intelligence that she was nothing more to the Death Eaters than part of a packaged deal-take Lucius, and you get his useless wife.

"No, no one in the Order would do this." Hermione dropped her wand to her side and extinguished the light. She was shivering all over. Despite the darkness and the unusual lack of moonlight, she could still see Narsissa Malfoy lying on the cobblestone street. Her hair was so blonde that it seemed to glow. No amount of darkness could overtake it completely.

"This was them," Harry said. "She did something to piss Him off."

Hermione knew it wasn't as simple as that. "Or someone who cared about her did something to piss Him off."

The three of them stood there quietly, listening to the rain fall, watching the fog of their breaths in the darkness.

"Lucius or Draco?" Ron asked eventually. A clock somewhere far away chimed loudly, each of its twelve bangs echoing down the narrow alleyway. "Wait, I know the answer to that one. No way it was Draco. He's all talk."

"It was probably Lucius. He's been a disappointment to Voldemort for awhile." Harry smirked at the memory of the man scurrying about in the Hall of Prophecies, tripping over his feet and tumbling to the floor in a mess of long legs and blond hair. Still, as much as he hated the elder Malfoy, he felt bad for smirking and felt the smile fall quickly from his face. His wife was dead now. She was dead and had been disposed of beside a storm-drain in a pissy little neighborhood like Spinner's End.

It was only coincidence that brought them here. The three of them liked to keep a low-profile, as you would expect, and there was a particularly good pub in this neighborhood that was owned by an older cousin of Neville Longbottom. They were guaranteed absolute safety there, and although the pub was practically crumbling to the ground, Norman Longbottom served only the best firewhisky in all of Great Britain.

Never did they expect to find her here.

"What should we do?" Ron asked.

"I'll go back to Grimmauld Place and tell Lupin," Harry said with a sad sigh. He was really looking forward to getting trashed and having to sleep in the extra cot at Norman's. "He'll know what to do."

"Right," Hermione said. "I'm coming with you. Suddenly I don't feel so much like drinking and having a good time."

"Same here," said Ron.

The three of them Apparated with a loud bang. The rain continued to fall on the body of Narcissa Malfoy, a woman who had once been respected but was now nothing more than discarded trash by a storm-drain.

—

Draco crashed through the forest, crying, cutting himself up to shreds in the brambles from the trees but not really giving much of a shit.

_They're gonna find you, _he thought to himself. His got his cloak caught in a branch and sprawled face-first into the mud. _There's no way they're _not _going to find you. You know that, right?_

He coughed and sputtered and fought for his breath, but above all, he kept crying. It was a cry he would've been ashamed of-a childish, hitching sob-but at least no one was there to hear it. Not yet anyway.

And if there was ever a time to bawl like a child, it was after seeing your mother humiliated, stripped down to nothing, and then killed right before your eyes.

"Shut up," he seethed to himself, wiping his forearm over his face. It did nothing to dry his tears. In fact, it only covered his face with more mud.

When he rolled over onto his back and looked up into the thundering sky, the option of staying here until they found him entered his mind. There would be much less drama that way. Because, no matter which way he decided to go about it-lying here and giving up or scrambling through the forest like an idiot-they were going to find him in the end, and they were going to kill him just as they killed his mother.

Well, probably not. For him, they wouldn't do it as quick. For him, Voldemort would make it last. Draco, after all, was the last tool of punishment against his father, and his father would require very much punishment. After failing so many times and raising such a disappointment of a son, he would require very much punishment indeed.

The rain began coming down harder now, and Draco sputtered as the cold, stale-tasting water filled his mouth. For some strange reason, right after the death of his mother, he didn't think of her at all. That would've been customary, he thought, to lie here and think of his mother, but as he rolled on his side and stared straight ahead into the darkness, he thought of Hogwarts.

What a magnificent, pompous asshole he'd been. It wasn't his behavior he regretted, though. Not at all. Treating everybody like slime and walking on clouds for five years had been a great time. It was his cluelessness that he regretted. At the time, he'd had no idea how perfect everything had been. How stupid his little rivalries with Potter or Weasley or even bucktoothed, know-it-all Granger really were. His childhood had been wonderful, full of magic and friends, and he hadn't realized it until it had all been snatched away from him.

_Yes. Yes, I think I'll just lie here for awhile, _he thought, closing his eyes. Despite the freezing rain and the fact that he was lying in a giant pit of mud, he fell asleep rather quickly.

And when he dreamed, he still didn't dream of his mother. Somehow, his subconscious knew it would be too painful. Instead, he dreamed of Hogwarts.

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**Author's Note:** Like I said, it's been a loooooooong time since I've posted something on , but I had this story scrambling around in my brain, and I had to get it out. I intend for this to be a long multi-chapter fic, and I don't want to start out sounding needy, but if you like this thing, let me know! Reviews show me that people are reading and actually caring about this story-without them, I'm pretty much just talking to myself. So, if you liked this first chapter (or even if you didn't like it, that's cool), please review, and I'll update as quickly as possible. Thanks!


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